REPORT: Barcelona complete one of the greatest comebacks of all-time | @MiguelDelaney https://t.co/w7MgtYFUHn pic.twitter.com/ha1OqDAaK7

— Indy Football (@IndyFootball) March 8, 2017

There is no other way to describe this remarkable match, that may well be one of the greatest ever seen in the Champions League, and certainly saw the greatest comeback in the Champions League as Barcelona recovered from a 4-0 first-leg deficit to pull off a divine 6-1 victory over Paris Saint-Germain to go through to the quarter-finals.

No side had ever come from four down in the first leg before, no-one can ever have witnessed a match like this before.

To top it off, delivery came in stoppage time, from homegrown Sergi Roberto. It can’t be forgotten that it also saw one of the greatest collapses the game has ever seen, such was the PSG’s regular moments of chaos contrasted with some of the supreme quality on display.

Read it all.

I guess I’m giving up silence for Lent this year.

That’s an odd thing to say when you make a living yapping about sports on ESPN. And odder when the show I host, “Around the Horn,” makes a game out of LOUD NOISES. (That is to say, loud, perspicacious noises from the most insightful sportswriters in America!) I press a mute button to shut them down if (when!) our sports debate careens out of bounds (Fake News!). Silence is how I penalize. Silence works. But is silence good?

I’ve been on national television for 16 years and for all 16 I wore an ash on Ash Wednesday. I am grateful to ESPN and fortunate to work in an environment that allows me to be myself. But it’s shocking to me that I’m one of the few faces you see on TV wearing an ash. I did an interview where the reporter told me if you put “The Guy Who Wears Ashes on TV” into Google, I’m the first name that comes up. That’s surprising.

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The Sheppard sisters are running sensations, but it’s what the three young girls are running from that makes them extraordinary.

Tai, 12, Rainn, 11, and Brooke, 9, run hurdles, distance, and high jump, respectively.

When the girls’ half-brother was fatally shot, their family fell on hard times and was evicted from their home. They have lived in a homeless shelter in Brooklyn, New York’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood since September of 2015.

Read it all (video highly recommended).

Liddell lived life to the hilt, but not in the modern “I am tenaciously dedicated to my own hedonic brand” kind of way. Liddell’s vision of an all-out life was to assess his options, count the cost, and then take the most risky step in the name of Jesus Christ. The calculation was a simple one: “Each one comes to the cross-roads at some period of his life,” Hamilton quotes Liddell as preaching, “and must make his decision for or against his Master.” This Christocentric logic made great sense to Liddell, even if it made little sense to the world. Liddell faced fierce skepticism for his attempts to live out his faith, whether in his famous decision not to run on Sundays or his withdrawal from competition in order to answer the missionary call.

This example can help inform contemporary engagement for believers. Much effort is made today by younger evangelicals to get the cultural backflip just right, to strenuously befriend unbelievers while never offending them with over-stressed Christianity. Liddell’s was a more straightforward approach. Drafting off of the Sermon on the Mount, his favorite section of Scripture, he stood for his convictions without flinching while loving his neighbor without hesitating. The resulting model of Christian witness is as simple as it is inspiring.

Liddell was not a perfect man, of course. Hamilton covers his lengthy separation from his family with a clear eye. Married in 1934 to the untiring Florence, Liddell fathered three children. He loved his wife and kids, but as Hamilton notes, his first priority was the work of missions. This meant lengthy periods of separation as Liddell worked in Siaochang and later Tientsin. The work was always grueling, and China in the 1930s and 1940s was a very fearsome place indeed. Liddell was often robbed, frequently hungry and dirty, and regularly accosted by officials seeking to impede his work.

Read it all from Christianity Today.

72 years ago today, Olympic runner and missionary to China Eric Liddell passed away from a brain tumor https://t.co/IJkElP1x9d

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) February 21, 2017

While Americans rightly exult in the achievements of U.S. medalists, “Chariots of Fire” also serves as a reminder that athletics and even patriotism only mean so much. When Liddell is informed that a qualifying heat takes place on Sunday, his Sabbath, he chooses not to compete in that race. The camera cuts from athletes at the Olympics to Liddell reading a passage in Isaiah: “Behold the nations are as a drop in the bucket . . . but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings, as eagles. They shall run, and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint.” David Puttnam, a “Chariots of Fire” producer, wrote me that the verses were “specifically selected by the actor, the late Ian Charleson, who gave himself the task of reading the entire Bible whilst preparing for the film.”

The Isaiah passage is liturgically important for Jews: Parts of it are declaimed in synagogue on the Sabbath when we read God’s command to Abraham to leave the center of civilization and found a family, and a faith, in a new land. Isaiah reminds Jews that Abraham’s children have encountered much worse than what Harold Abrahams experienced. While most nations now rest on the ash heap of history, the biblical Abraham’s odyssey continues. The countries competing in today’s Olympics come and go, while those who “wait upon the Lord” endure.

“Chariots of Fire” also offers a message for people of faith who have grown troubled by the secularization of society and the realization that they are often scorned by elites. Like Liddell, we may be forced to choose religious principle over social success. Hopefully, however, we will be able to use our gifts to sanctify this world. As Liddell’s father told his son in the film: “Run in God’s name, and let the world stand back in wonder.”

Read it all.

The New England @Patriots are @SuperBowl Champions! #SB51 pic.twitter.com/4Ftq5w9tq8

— NFL (@NFL) February 6, 2017

Cameroon fights back to beat Egypt 2-1 in African Cup final https://t.co/0M9iXqCpYo pic.twitter.com/dgnBk9v2HH

— Bloomberg (@business) February 5, 2017

How did you get into ministry?

Clarence Givens, our founding bishop and pastor at Rhema Christian Center Church, was quite a persuasive man. He asked my wife and me to become the youth directors. I thought, You have to be kidding me! I’m going to go into his office with my wife and let him know I can’t do that. I’ve got too much on my plate right now. And that’s exactly what I told Dorothy, my wife.

Now it makes me laugh because when we got into his office, I said, “Look, Bishop, you’ve got all of these responsibilities for me, and you know how busy I am. What is it exactly that you want me to do with the youth director position? I’m prepared to take it on.” And my wife started laughing, as if to say, “You get all bold talking about what you’re going to do, but when you sit in front of him, that all goes out the window.”

So in 2002, my wife and I became youth directors. And I was ordained in 2009.

Read it all.

#Federer: "Keep playing Rafa please. Tennis needs you. Keep doing everything you do." #AusOpen pic.twitter.com/lwH7EPiw1t

— #AusOpen (@AustralianOpen) January 29, 2017

#Nadal sets up Australian Open final w/ #Federer after marathon Dimitrov win https://t.co/P1bE5PSdLv @Metro_Sport #ausopen #tennis #history

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) January 27, 2017

Job done…@rogerfederer is into his first #AusOpen Final since 2010. pic.twitter.com/xYmXFGg5zB

— #AusOpen (@AustralianOpen) January 26, 2017

Marka MARKA.DU, a retailing group in the United Arab Emirates, has been granted exclusive rights to “manufacture, distribute and sell Real Madrid products” in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman, the company said in a statement on Tuesday.

But Marka Vice Chairman Khaled al-Mheiri told Reuters by phone Real Madrid has two versions of the crest for the Middle East market and that Marka would use the one without the Christian cross due to cultural sensitivities.

“We have to be sensitive towards other parts of the Gulf that are quite sensitive to products that hold the cross,” said al-Mheiri, who owns a Real Madrid cafe in Dubai.

Read it all.

Christian cross dropped from Real Madrid logo in Middle East clothing deal https://t.co/MgmJZti8jc

— Reuters Sports (@ReutersSports) January 24, 2017

Some of the bigger names have also warmed the hearts, with Venus Williams, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal all rolling back the years to delight fans who feared their best days were behind them.

But perhaps the greatest tale of all has been the remarkable renaissance of Croatia’s Mirjana Lucic-Baroni, who has battled her way to the Australian Open semi-final at the age of 34, 19 years after her previous match win at the tournament, and 18 years since her only other grand slam semi.

Read it all.

I'm so happy for you,Mirjana!
What a journey, you deserve all the success!Good luck in your @AustralianOpen semifinal,half italian girl!😊😊 pic.twitter.com/TpulrQ3ZMa

— Roberta Vinci (@roberta_vinci) January 25, 2017

The bishop who was a key figure in the campaign to uncover the truth about the Hillsborough disaster is to receive the Freedom of Liverpool.
Bishop James Jones chaired the Hillsborough Independent Panel, whose report led to the quashing of the 1989 tragedy’s inquest verdicts.
The cleric will be honoured later at a ceremony in the city.
Bishop Jones, 68, was made Knight Commander last year for his services to the Hillsborough Inquiry.

Read it all.

Manchester United have taken steps to increase they security by hiring a counter-terrorism chief after two high-profile lapses last year.

United are the first Premier League club to create a position of this kind, with the club made aware that their Old Trafford home lends itself to a significant target for extremists.

A former inspector from Greater Manchester Police’s specialist search unit has been appointed to fill the role, having been trained in cover police operations including terrorism, as well as specialising in sweep searches of buildings are vehicles.

Read it all.

Really, a team coached by Dabo Swinney couldn’t have won a national championship any other way.

The Clemson coach’s life story could have been written by Horatio Alger, the guy who invented the classic American success story, if Alger had a drawl and ever said, “Bring your own guts.”

Swinney, the former walk-on wide receiver, won his first national championship against his alma mater — the team that denied him a year ago, the monolithic defending national champion Alabama — with 1 second to play, on a throw to a former walk-on wide receiver.

Read it all.

Coach Swinney: "At the top of the mountain, that Clemson flag is flying!"

Last team standing. #ALLIN WIN. pic.twitter.com/8ceZPKhxzJ

— Clemson Football (@ClemsonFB) January 10, 2017

All those crazy suits will be missed. Rest In Peace Craig Sager!! pic.twitter.com/1i6kSg6CRm

— Fake SportsCenter (@FakeSportsCentr) December 15, 2016

Watch it all (just under 4 minutes)

Who are Generation Z? The latest data on today's teens https://t.co/t2lAxywj1p

— The Guardian (@guardian) December 10, 2016

Today’s youngest generation with a label, born after 2000, are connected yet isolated, savvy but anxious, indulged yet stressed. They have grown up with social media, a constant proliferation of information on a fully mobile internet, the rise of Islamic State and other forms of terrorism. As these teenagers approach adulthood, against the political backdrop of Brexit and President Trump, how will they shape the future?

The single biggest difference between Generation Z and other generations is how connected they are, and have been since birth. On average, young people in the UK, aged between five and 16, spend three hours online every day. Connectivity permeates their lives ”“ from friendships to relationships, news, entertainment, shopping ”“ and has transformed how they interact. The most popular apps are Snapchat, Instagram and messaging app Kik; the average teenager has at least 150 followers on Instagram, and spends around half an hour a day on Snapchat.

Young people are also reported to have a much more fluid sense of sexual identity and gender. A National Citizen Service (NCS) poll of 1,000 teenagers published in October this year found that only 63% of teens aged 16 and 17 define themselves as 100% straight (compared with 78% of adults). Gender identity is also less binary, with 78% of young men identifying as 100% male, and 80% of young women identifying as 100% female, according to the same NCS poll.

Read it all.

(Amazon)

Michael Lewis’s brilliant book celebrates Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, Israeli-American psychologists who are our age’s apostles of doubt about human reason. The timing is fortunate, given that overconfident experts may have caused and then failed to predict such momentous events as Brexit and the election of Donald Trump.

Mr. Kahneman and Tversky (who died in 1996) first started working together in 1969. They were well-matched. The Holocaust survivor Mr. Kahneman chronically doubted even himself. The brash Tversky targeted his doubts toward others, especially (as one acquaintance noted) “people who don’t know the difference between knowing and not knowing.” Testing people with quizzes in their laboratory, they found a host of “cognitive biases” afflicting rational thinking.

One bias they found is that we underestimate uncertainty. In hindsight bias, for example, test subjects misremembered their own predictions as being correct. As Tversky explained, “we find ourselves unable to predict what will happen; yet, after the fact we explain what did happen with a great deal of confidence. . . . It leads us to believe that there is a less uncertain world than there actually is.”

Read it all.

Former NFL player Jason Brown was earning millions of dollars on the gridiron but, at the height of his career, he left it all behind to pursue a wildly-different life on the farm focused on giving.

Watch it all from NBC. For those interested, there is more there.

Losing the Super Bowl four years in a row was tough, but it wasn’t even close to what was about to enfold. Life was about to take a much more difficult turn for Kelly, one that would put those football losses in perspective.

In 1997, Kelly’s son Hunter was born. Kelly had huge dreams for him; Hunter would be the next great athlete in the family. But “four months into his life, we realized he wasn’t reaching a lot of his milestones,” Kelly recalls. “The pediatrician told us ”˜your son is showing signs of cerebral palsy.’ It was devastating. But my son continued to get worse.” Then came the tragic news. Hunter was diagnosed with globoid-cell leukodystrophy, or Krabbe disease, a deadly neurological disease. Average life expectancy is less than a year. “The doctors told us to take him home, make him comfortable and watch him pass away,” Kelly says. But Kelly and his wife fought and tried to give their son a real life.

Hunter lived long enough to see his father inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2002. Kelly dedicated his speech to his son. Hunter ultimately passed away on Aug. 5, 2005, at the age of 8. “This was the lowest point of my life,” Kelly says choking up.

Kelly acknowledges that he had problems with his marriage and wasn’t proud of his behavior. “I hit rock bottom. I was mad. I knew I had to change my life and in 2007 I finally did. I had to humble myself to admit I made mistakes,” he says.

Read it all.

Joe Thomas Sr. made college football history by appearing as a running back for South Carolina State. He is believed to be the oldest player ever to participate in a Division I football game.

Watch it all from NBC.

Watch it all, this was shown by my colleague Craige Borrett during his morning sermon.

So is Zobrist’s faith showing up in mainstream news reports on his 2016 World Series heroics?

Not a whole lot, as far as I can tell. And honestly, you probably wouldn’t expect a parenthetical reference to his Christian beliefs in a game story on his big hit in the 10th inning last night.

But for journalists delving into Zobrist’s heart and soul after the Cubs’ first world championship in 108 years, that’s an important angle to pursue.

Read it all.

Cubs World Series celebration ranks as 7th largest gathering in human history https://t.co/wq8Gl3n0YF

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) November 5, 2016

Wow.

Today's Front Pages
Baseball's Longest Drought is over!
Read: https://t.co/QrjxUEYF3F #TFPTop10 #CubsWin #WorldSeries pic.twitter.com/47xrMvXFgI

— Newseum (@Newseum) November 3, 2016

“I don’t want to hear any negativity!” a voice shouted in the crowd.

You know what happened next. The Cubs held off the Indians in the ninth, and then”¦.it began raining in Cleveland. The crowd couldn’t help but laugh at the emotional torture of it. A rain delay?

A priest in the crowd””really, there was a priest, Father Bill Corcoran, of Saint Elizabeth Seton Church””pleaded for vigilance.

“You have to have courage! Corragio!” he said, using the Italian. “Never lose hope.”

Read it all.

Joy to the World: Cubs finally end 108-year Series drought – https://t.co/2V38iD3PKq #CubsTalk

— Cubs Talk (@CSNCubs) November 3, 2016

At least it didn’t take anything special to wipe out the longest title drought in the history of professional sports. Only the greatest World Series Game 7 ever played. That’s all.

Move over, Jack Morris and Luis Gonzalez. Tell Ralph Terry and Madison Bumgarner they had a great run. And you, Bill Mazeroski fans, submit your case via your favorite form of social media.

But we would argue that none of those games can top the passion, the drama and the history of Game 7 in Cleveland, on a balmy Wednesday night turned stormy Thursday morning. It took 10 exhausting innings and 4 hours and 45 exhilarating minutes. But when it finally ended, at 12:47 a.m., on Nov. 3, 2016, the giant left-field scoreboard read: Cubs 8, Indians 7. And it was suddenly possible to type a sentence that no living human has ever typed:

The Chicago Cubs are the champions of baseball.

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The moment.#WorldSeries pres. by @TMobile pic.twitter.com/CsrG5yvfII

— MLB (@MLB) November 3, 2016

Gutsy Game 5 win sends #WorldSeries back to Cleveland.

Recap: https://t.co/NpApZbzBtl #FlyTheW pic.twitter.com/93xztpHsfd

— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) October 31, 2016

For two days, generations of Cubs fans have held their breath. If they couldn’t see the team win its first championship since 1908 in Chicago, could the Cubs win at least one World Series game at Wrigley Field? Kris Bryant, Jon Lester and Aroldis Chapman obliged, and gave them reason to party on Sunday night.

Bryant ignited a three-run fourth inning with a leadoff home run, Lester provided the veteran moxy and Chapman worked overtime as the Cubs picked up a 3-2 victory over the Indians in Game 5 to avoid elimination and trim Cleveland’s lead in the best-of-seven Series to three games to two. Game 6 will be Tuesday night at Progressive Field, which will get live baseball after hosting watch parties all weekend.

Teams have rallied from a 3-1 deficit before, most recently the 1985 Royals. The Cubs can look to the ’79 Pirates, the ’68 Tigers, the ’58 Yankees and the ’25 Pirates for inspiration, too.

Read it all.